“Considering the definition of an official currency as set out in law, it’s not that. It’s also not a payment instrument, because the law stipulates that a payment instrument must have an issuer responsible for its operation,” Paeivi Heikkinen, head of oversight at the Bank of Finland in Helsinki, said in a Jan. 16 phone interview. “At this stage it’s more comparable to a commodity.”

5 comments on “Bitcoin Becomes Commodity in Finland”

“For the North America market, it’s going to be a a blistering good year,” says Gary Lydiate, chief executive of London’s Kilfrost, one of three big players in the de-icing fluid industry, along with Dow Chemical (DOW) and Swiss company Clariant (CLN:VX). Lydiate says Kilfrost has already shipped about 70 percent of the de-icing fluid it expected to sell this winter, with two-thirds of the season remaining. Come May, once most airport de-icing ends, Kilfrost says volume will total about 20 percent more than during the 2012-13 season.

In recent weeks the company has shipped more than 544,000 gallons of de-icing fluid to Illinois, most of it to Chicago’s O’Hare International, where Kilfrost customers American (AAL) and United (UAL) both have hubs. Airlines at O’Hare have used 1.06 million gallons through Jan. 15, compared with 1.1 million gallons for all of the 2012-13 season, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Aviation said in an e-mail. Most airports deal with multiple suppliers, given that carriers generally procure and apply their own de-icing fluid or outsource the job.

How can you tell which countries will or will not decide that Bitcoin is a currency? It’s relatively simple. All countries that have a comparatively strong state, by which I mean a state that regards itself as having some obligation to the society at large, will tend to reject Bitcoin as a currency. We can see this in Politburo run China and the Germanic Social Democracies like Norway and Finland. On the other hand, in societies where government is not seen as having any obligation to the society at large, the developing world and in particular, the ANGLO SAXON economies, we can expect to see adoption of demcoratised Currencies like Bitcoin.
Basically the rule is that any country that can be said to abide by the maxim:
‘There is no such thing as society there is just a collection of: individuals/corporations/families/tribes’etc (underline where applicable)
is a country that will endorse Bitcoin as a currency.http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/312882

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All countries that have a comparatively strong state, by which I mean a state that regards itself as having some obligation to the society at large, will tend to reject Bitcoin as a currency.
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The “STRONG vs Weak” State argument is not perfect, but it does describe the current situation in Winter 2014.

As per the Anglo-Saxon countries, this does not account for Wales and Scotland — nor Quebec nor how the NZL Maori feel about BitCoin. India is left out of the equation completely.

The broad variation in the English speaking nations must be accounted for and there will be different outcomes.

i am a bitcoin owner and supporter but i tend to agree with the commodity argument.nuntil we have easier convertibility and more stable prices, bitcoin really isn’t a currency. my fear is that countries will outlaw convertibility.